Japan Caribbean Climate Change Partnership

Project Overview

The Challenge

Climate change is recognized as one of the challenges which compounds inherent vulnerabilities in the Caribbean; it could significantly increase the risk of hurricanes and storms and threaten the region’s development. Increasing coastal erosion and severe coral reef bleaching events in 2005 and 2010 bear witness to this. Tourism and agriculture will be among the sectors most negatively impacted by these climatic changes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that small islands are highly vulnerable to climatic and non-climatic stressors, with sea level rise and temperature rise among the most insidious threats for coastal flooding and erosion, ecosystem degradation and loss of livelihoods. Further, inadequate awareness, information, technical and policy capacity, and limited funding availability for informing and formulating a low-emissions development strategy are among the reasons that it has been difficult to direct and guide climate change mitigation investments in the Caribbean. In sum, climate change threatens to undermine decades of progress and effort. As a result, it is a focal area for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), being explicitly identied in goal 13 but also encompassing other goals.

The Solution

Recognising that persistent climate-related liabilities will continue to undermine their potential for sustainable development, Caribbean countries are focusing their post-2015 long-term sustainable development strategies on the principles of climate risk management and resilience building – understood as market transformations based on “adjustments in ecological, social, or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli and their eects or impacts.” Studies have shown that cost-effective adaptation and risk mitigation solutions can help to avoid up to 90% of expected losses. The Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Partnership (J-CCCP) brings together policy makers, experts and representatives of communities to encourage policy innovation for climate technology incubation and diffusion. By doing so, the initiative aims to ensure that barriers to the implementation of climate-resilient technologies are addressed and overcome in a participatory and efficient manner. Policy instruments such as Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) provide tailored frameworks to expand access to clean energy and to prioritise adaptation measures. As a result, concrete mitigation and adaptation will be implemented on the ground, in line with countries' long-term strategies.

Building upon and supported by the NAMAs and NAPs, the partnership will support the incubation of climate technology into targeted public sectors, private industries, and community groups and enterprises so that green, low-emission climate-resilient technologies can be tested, refined, adopted, and sustained as a practical measure to enhance national, sub-national and community level resilience. These technologies will help reduce the dependence on fossil fuel imports, setting the region on a low emission development path; as well as improve the region’s ability to respond to climate risks and opportunities in the long-run, through resilient development approaches that go beyond disaster response to extreme events. The Partnership will include the following eight Caribbean countries: the Belize, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, the republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the Republic of Suriname. The Government of Japan has provided financial and technical support for this project, with UNDP acting in the capacity of implementing partner.

Introduction

The Challenge

Climate change is recognized as one of the challenges which compounds inherent vulnerabilities in the Caribbean; it could significantly increase the risk of hurricanes and storms and threaten the region’s development. Increasing coastal erosion and severe coral reef bleaching events in 2005 and 2010 bear witness to this. Tourism and agriculture will be among the sectors most negatively impacted by these climatic changes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that small islands are highly vulnerable to climatic and non-climatic stressors, with sea level rise and temperature rise among the most insidious threats for coastal flooding and erosion, ecosystem degradation and loss of livelihoods. Further, inadequate awareness, information, technical and policy capacity, and limited funding availability for informing and formulating a low-emissions development strategy are among the reasons that it has been difficult to direct and guide climate change mitigation investments in the Caribbean. In sum, climate change threatens to undermine decades of progress and effort. As a result, it is a focal area for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), being explicitly identied in goal 13 but also encompassing other goals.

The Solution

Recognising that persistent climate-related liabilities will continue to undermine their potential for sustainable development, Caribbean countries are focusing their post-2015 long-term sustainable development strategies on the principles of climate risk management and resilience building – understood as market transformations based on “adjustments in ecological, social, or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli and their eects or impacts.” Studies have shown that cost-effective adaptation and risk mitigation solutions can help to avoid up to 90% of expected losses. The Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Partnership (J-CCCP) brings together policy makers, experts and representatives of communities to encourage policy innovation for climate technology incubation and diffusion. By doing so, the initiative aims to ensure that barriers to the implementation of climate-resilient technologies are addressed and overcome in a participatory and efficient manner. Policy instruments such as Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) provide tailored frameworks to expand access to clean energy and to prioritise adaptation measures. As a result, concrete mitigation and adaptation will be implemented on the ground, in line with countries' long-term strategies.

Building upon and supported by the NAMAs and NAPs, the partnership will support the incubation of climate technology into targeted public sectors, private industries, and community groups and enterprises so that green, low-emission climate-resilient technologies can be tested, refined, adopted, and sustained as a practical measure to enhance national, sub-national and community level resilience. These technologies will help reduce the dependence on fossil fuel imports, setting the region on a low emission development path; as well as improve the region’s ability to respond to climate risks and opportunities in the long-run, through resilient development approaches that go beyond disaster response to extreme events. The Partnership will include the following eight Caribbean countries: the Belize, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, the republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the Republic of Suriname. The Government of Japan has provided financial and technical support for this project, with UNDP acting in the capacity of implementing partner.

Programme Meetings and Workshops

More than 100 climate scientists, researchers and negotiators from across the Caribbean and the world gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad from October 9 to 12, 2017, to highlight the region’s climate change adaptation successes at the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) International Conference on Climate Change for the Caribbean.

Caribbean and Japanese youth have put forward their recommendations for climate-smart actions for the region following two days of intense dialogue between October 10-11, 2017 at the third staging of the Youth Climate Change Conference at the Jamaica Conference Centre.

Representatives from twenty-six countries in the Latin America and Caribbean countries attended the regional workshop on national adaptation plans (NAPs), held in San Jose, Costa Rica, from 4 to 7 September, 2017.

J-CCCP provided climate change training to more than 30 journalists from across the region. The two-day training seminar enabled media practitioners to learn and share best practices on climate change issues including, climate change science, economics and policy as well as the role of media entities in communicating on climate change.

Stakeholders, some of whom took part in data collection for the study, gathered to hear the results of a knowledge, attitudes and practices study conducted in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in December, 2016. Participants also assisted with the development of campaign approaches and committed to supporting campaign implementation.

J-CCCP supported the National Climate Change Office of Belize in the development of a national communications plan for climate change. This support was in the form of a workshop where stakeholders from key sectors across the country fed into the development of the plan.

In April 2016, representatives from regional organisations gathered in St. Lucia to map synergies and actions between development partners and the Project relating to NAPs, NAMAs and knowledge management and communications. Organisations in attendance included: CARDI, CARICOM, CEDMA, CCCCC, CYEN, CIMH, CARPHA, and PANOS, among others. For NAP and NAMA development and pilot projects, organisations were asked to identify stages at which each organisation may be able to lend support based on their expertise, the specific nature of the assistance and how additional funding could be leveraged. Participants also contributed to plans under outcome 3, including policy events, study tours and campaigns and noted that the exercise was useful in order to break a trend of working in silos.-NAMA training

J-CCCP partnered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Regional Collaboration Centre (UNFCCC RCC), the UNDP Low Emission Capacity Building (LECB) Programme and local Ministries in the months of June and September to conduct two-day training seminars in Belize, Grenada, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname. The seminars were designed to support the development of climate mitigation actions, including Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). Approximately two hundred persons were trained in total.

Representatives from 10 Caribbean countries, including J-CCCP’s 8 beneficiary countries, met in Grenada’s capital of St. Georges to discuss strategies to prepare for the impact of climate change. Following Grenada’s final consultation on its National Adaptation Plan (NAP), they were able to share lessons from their experience of national adaptation planning, including some key topics such as political buy-in, coordination, integration of the sectoral plan, climate finance with peers through this two-day event. The NAP Assembly was co-hosted by Grenada’s Ministry of Education, Human Resource Development and the Environment; the UNDP Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Partnership (J-CCCP); and the NAP Global Network.

J-CCCP supported the National Climate Change Office of Belize in the development of a country-wide communications strategy. This workshop saw Communications Professionals from Belizean Ministries, CBOs, NGOs and the media gather to have inputs into the strategy. The Project will focus its efforts on implementing the initial stage of the strategy with support from other local stakeholders.

ProDocs

Monitoring and Evaluation

To support countries in advancing the process of low-emission risk-resilient development by improving energy security and integrating medium to long-term planning for adaptation to climate change

Number of plans and programmes that are informed by multi-hazard national and sub-national disaster and climate risk assessments, taking into account differentiated impacts on women and men

Few countries have a systematic process for incorporating disaster and climate risk into national planning and budgeting processes. Often “mainstreaming” of these issues is left with the key ministry and is not sufficiently integrated across sectors.

Key Government representatives and stakeholders recognise the value engaging in regular debate about the medium to long-term implication of climate risks and adaptation.

Senior planners and decision-makers continue to recognise the importance of climate change adaptation and are committed to support necessary policy changes.

Number of national/sub-national development and key sectorial plans that explicitly address disaster and/or climate risk management being implemented, disaggregated by those which are gender responsive (e.g. include the collection of disaggregated data, gender analysis and targeted actions)

Gender responsiveness and even mainstreaming of CCA and DRR are limited

All implemented demonstration activities are based on community-level risk and vulnerability assessment, which include gender analysis

Gender inequalities and imbalances may affect the implementation efficiency of community activities as well as their sustainability. It is assumed that these imbalances can be identified early in order to adjust the project’s strategy.

Key community stakeholders will be open and receptive to government’s initiatives at community level, and that political considerations will not infer negatively in the implementation of the project, if for instance the communities have strong expectation on a topic unrelated to CC, disaster management, or even resilience.

Number of new jobs and other livelihoods generated, disaggregated by sex

Youth unemployment is high in the region, and women tend to have higher unemployment and less access to employment opportunities than men

50 persons develop new/enhanced skills with which they generate livelihoods, disaggregated by sex, age and sector

Training reports

Field visit reports

Mid-term evaluation

Final evaluation

Tools and approaches developed by the project are considered practical, locally appropriate, innovative, sustainable and cost effective.

Key Government representatives and stakeholders recognise the value of project-related training initiatives.

Low capacities of committees to support the implementation of appropriate climate resilient technologies.

Outcome 1

NAMAs and NAPs to promote alternative low-emission and climate-resilient technologies that can support energy transformation and adaptation in economic sectors are formulated and institutionalised

Number of countries where implementation of comprehensive measures - plans, strategies, policies, programmes and budgets - to achieve low-emission and climate-resilient development objectives have improved

Number of national/sub-national development and key sectorial plans that explicitly address disaster and/or climate risk management being implemented, disaggregated by those which are gender responsive

Some Caribbean countries have developed urgent and immediate plans for adaptation and other related climate change strategies and started their implementation, with some having coordination mechanisms in place to integrate them into the development process as well as other elements which could be used for medium to long-term planning.

Almost all Caribbean countries report on lack of capacity, data, expertise, institutions and financial resources to undertake medium- to long -term oriented impact assessment and adaptation planning.

Key Government representatives and stakeholders recognise the value engaging in regular debate about the medium to long-term implication of climate risks and adaptation.

Senior planners and decision-makers continue to recognise the importance of climate change adaptation and are committed to support necessary policy changes.

Tools and approaches developed by the project are considered practical, locally appropriate, innovative, sustainable and cost effective.

Key Government representatives and stakeholders recognise the value of project-related training initiatives.

Outputs to deliver Outcome 1:

Output 1.1. Technical support towards national and sub-national institutional and coordination arrangements in Caribbean countries to support the formulation of national roadmaps on the NAP process, including elements for monitoring the progress of their implementation.

Output 1.2. National teams are trained in the use of tools, methods and approaches to advance the NAP process and budgeting.

Number of new partnership mechanisms with funding for sustainable management solutions of natural resources, ecosystem services, chemicals and waste

at national and/or sub-national level

Several formal and informal relationships exist within the region, and opportunities for cooperation originate in many forms, including through regional bodies as well as projects

3 partnership mechanisms agreed

Reports from workshops/policy dialogues

MOUs, partnership agreements, letters of agreement

Mid-term evaluation

Final evaluation

Experience and lessons sharing among beneficiary countries will lead to formal partnership for sharing of technical capacity, data and other resources.

Number of case studies disseminated and available on regional knowledge platforms

Often project results can be lost after project ends or only confined to a small number of users

10 case studies shared on at least 2 regional platforms

e.g. CCCCC, CIMH, CDEMA websites

UNDP website, ALM

It is assumed that all institutions will collaborate in information sharing

Outputs to deliver Outcome 3:

Output 3.1 Capacity building within the region to sustain and enhance approaches to climate change adaptation and mitigation

Output 3.2 Communication campaign on the benefits of mitigation and adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk management interventions to catalyse low emission technologies for sustainable cities in island towns and communities

Output 3.3Japan-Caribbean transfer of technical and process-oriented information on experiences, good practice, lessons and examples of relevance to medium to long-term national, sector and local planning and budgeting processes